My Lord of the Flies Day

Thanks to God's Little Wonders site for the photo.

Boston is raining.

After a dry spell (which = a pretty nice summer but also = water shortages), Mother Nature is now making up for lost time.

And it’s raining like a BAH-stard.

Short of rainy day activities, and a member of the Boston Children’s Museum, take the kids for an outing ther seem like the logical thing to do. Jeepers! The carpet structure in the lobby (picture above) is a vertical art installation spanning 3 stories- that the kids can climb– and it is totally worth the price of admission just by itself. It is beloved by my high-energy kids and their mother who can sit in the benches and relax.

So great idea! Off to Boston we go… Hi-ho!

And so did every other Boston parent with kids.

I should have knows, the lobby was choked with strollers. It looked like the mall parking lot during tax-free or high holidays. Hysterical kids and their equally hysterical parents fought tooth and nail for each square inch of mind-enriching space.

It was totally not for the faint of heart.

Thank goodness I have my parking karma (a super power that allows me to find parking spaces at will, usually right next to where I want to be) it somehow translated into activity station karma and lunch table karma. So while parents (and kids) were battling lord of the flies-like over lunch room and water tables, my crew sailed in to empty or nearly-empty ball rooms and Buster’s Jet.

But boy it WAS great people watching. I, being the hazed and now a much (more) relaxed parent of school-age kids, just sat back and watched the show. While my kids negotiated obstacles and other kids, I watched one shaky exasperated mother tell her pre-teen son point blank “I’m leaving now, if you’re with me great! If you’re not, you can figure out a way home because I’M DONE!… DONE!”

Others would cling tightly to their kids’ hands, worried that the swarm of toddlers, grandparents, ‘rents and kids would sweep the ‘em away. A few looked like they really didn’t know where the hell their kid was, letting the fates sort it all out. And the gaggle of Dads out for a group playdate? They were the best– the most relaxed. If their kid decided to use the water tables as a personal jacuzzi, no problem. They laughed it off as they hauled out Skippy Jr. out, later Skippy was flying out Spider-Man style from the bridges in the Construction Zone. One Day saying “Look at him GO!”

I felt the worst for the grandparents– you could see the terror in their eyes– fear of losing their kid’s kid, the realization that “I/we are too old for this shit.”

I’d tell you, if there were a kid-friendly pub in the museum, it would have been doing some BRISK business.

Brisk.